Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Build It - Project-Based Learning In Full Bloom

Source: ASIDE 2016

The library makerspace was in full bloom this year, giving our students an amazing opportunity to learn by doing. They were encouraged to use a variety of applications to explore different ways to demonstrate their academic abilities as they related to curricula thematic units. The finished products were anything but projects; they combined informational, visual, and spatial literacies, and they actively pushed students to think critically and solve problems.

Source: ASIDE 2016

As with any project-based learning experience, it required collaboration. The nursery, Kindergarten, second-grade teachers, and librarians worked together to design an interactive, hands-on unit to engage students on multiple levels throughout the process. The following projects represent a symphony of parts, but most of all, they could not have culminated into this extraordinary learning experience for the students without an incredible group of dedicated friends and colleagues.

Source: ASIDE 2016

Teachers Elizabeth Wakhale and Lori Zwick described it this way: “The nursery children worked in the library makerspace with librarian, Stephanie Temple, to transform everyday materials into upcycled instruments. The inspiration came from the book entitled The Animal Boogie, by Debbie Harter, where they listened to the sounds of the rainforest. Tissue boxes became guitars, oatmeal containers became drums, paper towel rolls became rain sticks, and egg cartons became bell shakers. Their imaginations soared, and the sky was the limit.” The children will play their musical instruments in their outdoor celebration of Earth Day and the rainforest in the campus amphitheater at the end of the week.

Source: ASIDE 2016

The students in Kindergarten used engineering skills to create blue prints of world landmarks by deconstructing the shapes of buildings, finding the materials they needed to build them, and erecting the structures in three-dimensional forms. Geography was an integral part of the learning process. The students studied the continents and made map keys to mark where each of the landmarks was located.

The Kindergarteners learned about community helpers with their teachers Marybeth Horne and Jessica Shippos. This project was a way for them to see how community builders must have worked together to construct important cultural landmarks. “It was amazing to see how the students carefully deconstructed the different geometric shapes for their blueprints to figure out they materials they needed to build their own creations,” said librarian, Stephanie Temple.

Source: ASIDE 2016

Source: ASIDE 2016

The second graders became urban planners and architectural engineers to answer the question, “Where Do People Live?” They used a variety of visual tools such as sketchnotes and mapping to plan their physical urban, suburban, and rural communities. This involved visually transferring a two-dimensional map into a three-dimensional environment.

The second grade teachers, Stefani Rosenthal and Jessica Raffaele, had the students document the communities by taking photographs on their iPads. They imported the images into the Book Creator app in which they reflected in writing on the needs of a community and the type of community in which they would like to live. It was a perfect combination of “High Tech, High Touch.”

Source: ASIDE 2016

Our “Build It” after school program was also a big hit. The whimsical robots and imaginary landscapes captured the hearts and minds of everyone. It was an amazing experience for the students to see their handiwork on display. It was the school hot spot for the week, with lots of photo opportunities with their creations.

Most of all, nothing limited their creativity. When the exhibition opened, the students could not have been prouder, nor could we.